Tory Lite - McGuinty and Public Sector Cuts

Dalton McGuinty, the Ontario Premier who, as I mentioned in previous posts, will not be receiving my support in the October election over his shameless disavowal of any responsibility for the police abuses during last year's G20 Summit, has often been called Blue Lite, a reference to his conservative proclivities. Today, its seems that he has stolen a page from his rival Tim Hudak's 'Changebook' by announcing that between now and next March, 1900 public sector workers will lose their jobs.

As reported in The Star, the first round of cuts mean the province will stop verifying local social assistance distribution, reduce staffing that monitors collection agencies, and lay off 57 people with technical expertise in water safety and air quality in the environment ministry.

Not to worry, according to Environment Minister John Wilkinson, who says these 'staff reductions' will have no impact on the public, and that the cuts were the type of “pruning” people expected.

Orwell warned about the political misuse of language, including euphemisms, as a means of defending the indefensible, but I cannot help wondering whether this 'pruning' will have an impact on the McGuinty 'harvest' in October.

How The Harper Government Defines Efficiency At The CBC

While it will likely come as no surprise to many, the Harper Government has within its sights the CBC, the sometimes irksome public broadcaster that the right-wing so often loves to hate. As reported online in today's Globe, the Heritage Minister, James Moore, says that a 5% federal funding cut should not be onerous for the Corporation.

Perhaps part of the larger Tory agenda, not just for the CBC but the country as a whole, was revealed in the following statement by the Minister:

“The truth is the CBC is finding efficiencies. The CBC used to have nine unions. Now there are six. They’ve sold assets that, frankly, they weren’t using.”

So, it would seem that union-busting and asset sales form an important part of the long-term strategy of these self-proclaimed master managers of the economy.

One can only shudder when considering the future shape of this country.

Critical Thinking: Do We Get The Kind Of Political Leadership We Deserve?

In many ways, I suspect that we get exactly the kind of political representation that we deserve. A population that is either largely disengaged from the political process or lacking in fundamental critical thinking skills invites our elected representatives to treat us with disdain, safe in the knowledge that few will rouse themselves to object. The effects of this kind of passivity and lazy thinking are most evident when politicos are campaigning for our vote, making outrageous promises and guarantees that show how little they really think of us.

Take, for example, Rob Ford's successful bid to become the mayor of Toronto, based almost exclusively on the promise to “end the gravy train” that was, according to the mythology advanced by the true believers, sapping the Big Smoke of its monetary resources and bleeding the taxpayers dry. So, in a mass Pavlovian response, the people elected the big fellow, only to now learn that the putative rich diet of the metaphorical locomotive never existed.

In an excellent piece by Roy James in today's Star entitled Rob Ford's gravy train running on fumes, we learn that, after spending $350,000 on a consultant telling them things they already knew, the City spends most of its money on core services, nary a gravy boat in site (forgive me for mixing my metaphors):

As on many other files, the civic leader was missing in action. So, too, was the anticipated list of huge savings to be found in bloated departments. And the hit list of waste and gravy.

It turns out that if Ford is going to find “savings” from the city’s water, garbage and transportation departments he will have to convince city council to keep the blue box out of apartments and condos, reduce snow clearing, cut the grass and sweep the streets less often, and end fluoridation of Toronto’s drinking water — all politically explosive issues.

For that — and a list of nickel-and-dime, nip-and-tuck manoeuvres — Toronto could potentially, possibly, save up to $10 million to $15 million in departments that spend $1 billion, one-third of which comes from taxes.

City councillors didn’t need to pay a consultant $350,000 to tell them where to find those “savings.” Council considers them every year — and often recoils from implementing them.

The mayor has fed the general expectation that the consultants from KPMG would use their fresh eyes to uncover bushels of low-hanging fruit that nobody had identified before — the “gravy.”

They haven’t.

Can this reality actually come as a surprise to the voting public? I would like to say no, but sadly, for the aforementioned reasons, the answer has to be yes.

I hope you will take a few moments to read the entire article.

Netweeper Inc. - A Canadian Company That Facilitates Internet Censorship Abroad

In an age when regulation of shoddy business practices seems to be rapidly eroding, the ethos today being that anything inhibiting growth is bad, it may not come as a surprise that both the Federal and the Ontario Provincial Governments are complicit in inhibiting the free flow of information in countries with repressive regimes.

The latest Canadian salvo against human rights is revealed in a story appearing in today's Toronto Star. Entitled Canada needs clear cyberspace censorship policy, watchdog says, the piece reveals how both levels of government virtually endorsed a Guelph-based company that produces content-filtering software that it sells to repressive countries to control what is available to their citizens on the Internet. In the United Arab Emirates, Netsweeper Inc., which has received Canadian government grants, presented a domestic telecom called Du with an award for its use of green technology. Representatives of both the Harper and McGuinty governments were on hand for the ceremony, but as reported in The Star, the problem is this:

Du uses Netsweeper software to block content from UAE Internet users, including political, religious and human rights material, according to the Open Net Initiative, a collective of researchers that track Internet censorship and surveillance.

The question we, as Canadians, have to ask ourselves is whether it is right to both fund and endorse companies that make it easier for such countries to repress their citizens. Do we take a stand based on common principle, or do we hew to the egregiously amoral philosophy that markets will decide the fate of such enterprises?

The State of Journalism

Thanks to Dr. Dawg for posting this link to an essay by Kai Nagata, who writes about why he recently quit his job as a reporter for CTV. His observations about the current state of television journalism are instructive, and will be of interest to anyone who worries about the increasing vapidity of news content these days.

Unions - Part Two

Thanks to fellow-blogger Orwell for providing this link to the Australian version of the video I wrote about yesterday:

What Have Unions Done For Us?

I just came across the following video on You Tube. Although directed toward an American audience, its message is completely applicable to Canada as well. Enjoy!